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Eric Johns
CONTENTS

1 The Most Unpopular Boy 7

2 The Rabbit War 10
3 Fairy Story I: The Disobedient Boy 22
4 Gosse 27
5 Goblinland 30
6 Funny Unkie 44
7 Picnic 48
8 Miracle 50
9 Snake-pit 57
10 Smugglers 62
11 Yanks 81
12 Fairy Story II: The Foolish Father 88
13 The Bomb-Aimer's Sister 101
14 Rich Girl 105
15 Nine Lives 111
16 AK 115
17 Chocolate 129
18 To Save the World 143
1 The Most Unpopular Boy
The boy was scrawny and pale-faced. It was only in his imagination
that he towered over the other boys in his class and was leader of a
gang. If ever he tried to tell them what to do, they laughed at him. He
dreamed of revenge and pictured his tormentors begging for mercy.
It was nearly the end of the school day and the boy was waiting
by the front door of the Linz Realschule for his father. His class
teacher, Dr Hmer, had asked yet again to see him. The boy knew he
was going to be punished. While he waited he devised painful accidents
which he imagined befalling his father and his teacher and preventing
their meeting. He visualised the accidents in bloody detail.
Then the boy saw his father turn in the school gate and felt a
humiliating surge of fear in his stomach. His father was a powerful
man, broad and brutal. He marched up to the school.
"Show me where to go then," he bellowed even though he
knew the way.
The boy hastened ahead of him down the corridor, as though
trying to keep out of his reach. They came to a door and he pointed.
"Well, am I to go in?" his father demanded.
The boy nodded.
"Then open it for me."
The boy fumbled with the handle, then pressed himself flat. His
father strode into the room brushing him aside.
"Are you supposed to wait with me?"
"No, sir," the boy answered.
"Then get out."
The boy closed the door but could hear his father stomping
about the office and mumbling angrily to himself. He stood outside as
Dr Hmer had instructed. He imagined he was a guard outside a death
chamber. A few minutes later lessons ended for the day and his class
came filing past him.
"Hey, Stinky-breath, you're going to get beaten again," the
leading boy told him loudly.
 The next boy repeated the threat. Then the next. Stinky-breath:
beaten. Stinky-breath: beaten. All forty-six of his classmates echoed the
refrain as they passed him, laughing.
The corridor emptied for a moment before Dr Hmer appeared.
"Is your father here?" he asked.
"Yes, sir." The boy's voice rose squeakily and he hated his
teacher for making it go like that.
Dr Hmer swept into the office. The boy waited a second, then
placed his ear against the door. He heard Dr Hmer's voice.
"I'm sorry to say that there has been no improvement..."
The boy imagined his teacher standing in the path of a runaway
horse.
"He is a cantankerous and bad-tempered pupil..."
The horse's trailing reins caught round Dr Hmer's legs and
whipped them from under him.
"He has a small amount of talent but lacks the self-discipline to
make the most of it..."
The horse bolted down the street dragging Dr Hmer behind it.
"He has no enthusiasm for hard work..."
Dr Hmer's head banged on the cobbles and his arms flailed
helplessly.
"He is hostile to advice or reproof..."
A trail of blood followed the limp body of the schoolmaster.
"He expects obedience from other pupils and is unpopular with
them..."
Fearlessly, the boy caught the horse by its mane and brought it
to a halt. He stood over the motionless body of his teacher and laughed.
His classmates gathered round him cheering.
Suddenly, the office door flew open and the boy's father
stormed out. He grabbed the collar of his son's jacket and hauled him
out of the school. All the way back to the village of Leonding where
they lived, the boy was dragged along as Dr Hmer had been in his
daydream. He saw fleeting images of his classmates' grinning faces as
they watched him pass. His father's harsh breathing echoed in his head
like the wheezing bellows of an organ accompanying an unspoken
litany of threats.
When they arrived at their small house, his father flung open
the garden gate and propelled his son through the front door. He bent
him over a chair. The boy smelt his beery breath.
"I'll teach you to humiliate me," his father panted.
He began to beat his son.
"It's Dr Hmer's fault," the boy tried to say. "He hates me
because I'm cleverer than he is."
His father rained blows on him. In spite of himself the boy
counted each one.
"He's jealous because I'm popular," the boy sobbed.
The blows fell endlessly. Ten. Twenty.
"I'll make you sorry," the boy tried to say, but choked. "I'll
make you all sorry. I promise. I promise."
Thirty-two. His father stopped exhausted and threw his son into
a corner of the room.
The boy's mother and four-year-old sister clung to each other
watching. His mother was the only one who understood him. She could
see that everyone was jealous of him. She knew that he was superior to
his tormentors. She promised him that one day he would be their leader.
He tried to block out the sound of his classmates calling him
Muttershnchen, mummy's boy.
His father wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'm
ashamed to have you as my son," he roared at the cowering boy.
"You're a disgrace to the family. You bring shame on the name Hitler."
2 The Rabbit War
Len and Charlotte stared through the train window at their mother. She
was waving. The platform was crowded with mothers, all waving
goodbye to their children. Some were crying, but their mother was
being brave. As the train started to move, the mothers all ran to keep
their children in view for as long as possible. Their mother began to run
but soon fell back.
Len pressed his face against the glass. He felt frightened of the
responsibility she had put on him. "Look after Charlotte," she'd kept
saying. "I'm relying on you." But he didn't know what he had to do. He
had wanted to explain that he didn't know how to be an evacuee, but he
couldn't find the right words.
Suddenly, the train whistled and plunged into a tunnel. The
unexpected darkness made the children in the carriage scream.
None of them knows what's going to happen, Len thought.
They're all frightened like me. Why did Hitler want to bomb them?
They'd never done anything to him.
When they came out of the tunnel they were passing rows of
houses with gardens. Not like where they lived. There was only a
concrete yard behind their block, with a washing-line for each family.
They played hide and seek between the sheets and all the mothers
yelled at them to get away from the washing, but no one took any
notice.
Len looked at Charlotte. She was sitting up straight. He was
relieved to see that she seemed quite calm.
"They'll look after us where we're going," he told her. "Mum
said."
She glanced at him coolly. "You look like a parcel."
Len touched his label. The string was threaded through his
buttonhole. He noticed that Charlotte's label was no longer tied to her
coat.
"Where's your label?" he demanded. "Mum said not to take it
off. No one will know who you are if you get lost."
"I know who I am." She put on an amused expression. "It's on
my gas mask strap."
 All the children had gas mask boxes hanging round their neck.
Charlotte had taken hers off and put it on the seat. Her name-label was
lying on it.
Somehow, not having a label, made her look as though she was
in charge of herself.
"Mum said not to take it off," he repeated.
"Mum said," Charlotte echoed him mockingly. She gazed
calmly through the window. The houses and gardens were growing
larger with every mile they travelled from the city. Idly, she stroked her
gas mask box. It was not like the other children's. Theirs were brown
cardboard. She had glued coloured paper over hers and picked out her
name in sequins.
"I'm going to have a sandwich," Len said.
Charlotte didn't seem to hear him. Len knew what she was
thinking. She was imagining being a princess and living in one of the
big houses they were passing. It was her favourite daydream. She'd told
him about it once, a long time ago; but now, if he ever mentioned it,
she'd just shrug and turn away. Len would have liked to tell her about
his daydream, but she wouldn't share secrets any more.
He untied a parcel wrapped in newspaper. Inside there were
jam sandwiches in greaseproof paper which was not quite long enough
to go round them. One of the sandwiches had a stripe of newsprint on
it.
"Make them last," mum had said. "You don't know when you'll
get anything else."
Len chewed on the thick bread. Fields, barns and haystacks
rushed past the train but Len saw only his daydream. One day he was
going to be a coalman. But not like the one who came to their block
with the knobbly sacks on his cart. He was going to have a motor lorry,
not a plodding horse. He'd be the first coalman with a lorry. He
imagined the admiration when his mum saw him.
The rhythm of the wheels changed and brought him out of his
daydream. They were in the country. As the train slowed a cluster of
houses appeared. They all had gardens and were surrounded by fields.
At the top of a hill stood a big house with turrets. He'd only seen places
like it in pictures.
The train stopped and a lady in a large hat opened the door.
"All evacuees in this carriage get out here," she instructed.
"Don't forget your luggage."
Len felt his stomach tighten and his knees start to tremble. He'd
begged not to be sent to the country. There was an air-raid shelter at the
end of their road. They'd be all right if the bombers came. But his mum
had said he had to go so that he could look after Charlotte. She didn't
seem to worry about him being bombed.
Charlotte had demanded a proper suitcase and been given one.
His things were tied up in a brown paper parcel.
When he stepped onto the platform, Len found that he was
bursting. He saw a sign saying, 'Gents' and ran towards it. Other
children followed him.
"Oh, well," the lady in the hat said. "I suppose you'd all better
go."
She counted the children as they returned. "Right," she said at
last. "Everyone follow me. Big ones help the little ones with their
luggage."
Len tried to take Charlotte's suitcase.
"What're you doing?" she asked crossly. "That's mine."
"No, I..." Len wanted to explain. He was only trying to look
after her, like mum had said. But he was afraid he'd sound soft if he
said it.
The procession followed the lady down the road.
"You don't have to walk next to me all the time," Charlotte
said.
"Mum said we'd got to stay together."
"That was only on the train." She made him feel stupid, as if
she was older than him, not the other way round.
What would he tell mum if he lost Charlotte?
They followed the lady to the village hall. It had green wooden
walls and a black corrugated iron roof. Inside there was a table near the
door and chairs round the walls. The children were told to sit down.
The lady arranged official-looking papers on the table.
"Your new families will be here to collect you soon," she told
them, but looked doubtful.
Len felt his stomach lurch again. Charlotte didn't seem at all
nervous. The evacuees stared round the hall and swung their legs in
boredom. Occasionally, people came and selected children. The lady
copied down their names from their labels.
A woman in a frayed coat with a scarf round her head and
men's boots on her feet came in. She studied the children and sniffed. "I
can only take one," she told the lady in charge. "She'll do." She pointed
at Charlotte.
Charlotte stared coldly at her. "I'm not going without my
brother," she said flatly.
The woman shrugged. "'Er then." She pointed at another girl.
Gradually the evacuees were chosen. Most people only wanted
one evacuee, or two boys, or two girls. At last, only Len and Charlotte
remained.
Len wondered if they would have to spend the night in the hall
if no one took them. Or perhaps they'd be sent back home.
There was the sound of a motor in the street. Charlotte stood on
her chair to look through a window. A car had pulled up outside and a
chauffeur in a peaked cap was opening the rear door for a lady in a long
coat. She wore a fur round her neck which ended in a fox's head with
beady eyes.
Charlotte straightened her coat and made sure her beret was at
the right angle.
The hall door was held open by the chauffeur and the lady with
the fox fur swept in.
"We've only two children left," the lady at the table said
apologetically. "They're brother and sister."
"I really don't think Rose would be able to cope with more than
one," the lady with the fox fur told her. "What do you think, George?"
she asked the chauffeur.
"I'm sure you're right, madam," he agreed.
Charlotte stepped forward and curtseyed to the lady.
"Mother said we should be accommodating to our hosts," she
said politely. "We would be quite willing to stay with different families
if that was convenient."
Len gaped at her. Where had she learnt to talk like that, and to
curtsey?
"That's settled then," the lady with the fox fur declared.
"Mum said..." Len started to say, but no one heard him.
The lady at the table scribbled hastily. "You'll go with Mrs
Gosney," she told Charlotte.
Charlotte picked up her suitcase and gave Len a little smirk.
She followed Mrs Gosney out of the hall. As she passed the chauffeur
she gave him the suitcase to carry.
Len noticed her newspaper-wrapped packet of sandwiches on
the chair next to him. He picked them up but the door had already
closed behind her. He climbed on a chair and saw Charlotte follow Mrs
Gosney into the back of the car. The door was closed for her and the
suitcase placed in the front next to the chauffeur. The two figures in the
back seemed deep in conversation.
As the car started to move, Len held up Charlotte's sandwiches
but she didn't look in his direction. He felt lost. All he could hear was
their mum's voice saying, "Promise me you'll look after Charlotte.
Don't let them split you up."